Rebels Strike Sudan's Kadugli after Peace Talks
Rebels rained rockets on the capital of Sudan's South Kordofan state on Wednesday, official radio reported, a day after peace talks with the government broke off.
"SPLM-North shelled Kadugli with Katyusha (rockets)," Radio Omdurman said in a brief SMS dispatch citing the state's governor.
A resident of Kadugli told Agence France Presse several rockets hit the southern part of the town at about 1500 GMT.
"I saw one house ablaze," said the witness, who had no information about any casualties and asked not to be identified.
The attack came after African Union-mediated peace talks in Ethiopia adjourned on Tuesday having failed to make progress in halting the nearly three-year-old war in South Kordofan and Blue Nile.
The two sides did not meet face to face over several days of negotiations, -- the first in nearly a year -- and instead traded accusations.
Talks are supposed to resume later this month.
In Addis Ababa on Monday, the head of the rebel delegation, Yassir Arman, said Khartoum wants "to freeze this war without giving any solutions to the humanitarian situation and the political situation".
The government accused the Sudan People's Liberation Movement - North of raising issues unrelated to the two war zones of South Kordofan and Blue Nile.
Rebel spokesman Arnu Ngutulu Lodi told Agence France Presse he had no information about an attack on Kadugli.
Artillery fire suspected or confirmed to be from rebels has previously hit the town in conjunction with key political events.
In April last year, two people were killed when shells crashed down on Kadugli as Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir held talks in the South Sudanese capital Juba with his counterpart Salva Kiir.
The summit symbolized an easing of tensions, particularly over the South's alleged support for the SPLM-N.
In early October 2012, the SPLM-N began several weeks of periodic mortar attacks on Kadugli, forcing residents to flee.
Eighteen people died and 32 were wounded in those barrages, the U.N. children's fund said.
The rebels said they were targeting military facilities in response to government air raids on civilian property.
The 2012 attacks began after Sudan and South Sudan reached a series of security and economic agreements which they hailed at the time as easing tensions between them.
Prior to Wednesday's barrage, the last rebel fire on Kadugli came in mid-December, in what SPLM-N said was retaliation for government attacks on civilians.
The insurrection by the mainly non-Arab SPLM-N is fueled by complaints of political and economic neglect by the Arab-dominated Khartoum regime.
The United Nations says more than one million people have been severely affected or displaced by the war in South Kordofan and in Blue Nile state, where the SPLM-N is also fighting.
Source: Agence France Presse
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